New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Hardball, with Special Guest Austen Rachlis!

It's the final episode of our Guilty Treasures season! Award-winning podcaster Austen Rachlis stops by to profess her affection for Hardball, in which Keanu Reeves coaches an inner-city little league baseball team, including a young Michael B. Jordan! Will we wholeheartedly endorse her choice?

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Big Trouble in Little China, with Kate Milford!

Acclaimed children’s author Kate Milford joins us to talk about one of her favorite movies, John Carpenter’s cult classic Big Trouble in Little China. Will she be able to win us over to its charms?

New Episode of A Good Story Well Told on Tremors with Benjamin Zelkowicz!

Author and animator Benjamin Zelkowicz joins us to share his love of the 1990 Kevin Bacon creature-feature Tremors, and the three of us have a good old time mining it for story insights.  Check it out:

New episode of A Good Story Well Told about The Intern, featuring Peter C. Hayward!

Our Guilty Treasures season continues!  Master board game creator Peter C. Hayward joins us to sing the praises of the 2015 Nancy Meyers movie The Intern, but Jonathan and I have very different reactions. Who will join in the praise and who will say this movie just might be the death of America?

New episode of A Good Story Well Told about Ace in the Hole, featuring Keir Graff!

It’s a special crossover episode with the The Filmographers Podcast! They’ve been spending their second season looking at the films of Billy Wilder, so we invited Keir Graff on to discuss Wilder’s most underrated film, Ace in the Hole! Can he convince us that it’s great? (Spoiler Alert: Easily)

 

New episode of A Good Story Well Told about The Brave Little Toaster, featuring Betsy Bird!

Jonathan Auxier and I welcome my legendary wife Betsy to discuss one of the weirdest movies ever made, Disney's direct-to-video epic The Brave Little Toaster. Is it oddly great, or just greatly odd?

New Episode of A Good Story Well Told on Beau is Afraid, featuring James Kennedy!

We’re back! And James Kennedy is back! Longtime readers will remember that James and I ran a podcast called “The Secrets of Story Podcast” for many years until it ended a while ago. Well now he’s back as a guest on my new podcast, “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier! In this season, we invite on guests to make a case for critically derided or commercially overlooked movies, and hoo-boy has James delivered on both fronts, with Ari Aster’s deeply personal Beau is Afraid. Will he be able to win over Jonathan and I to this bizarre epic (which Aster described as “A Jewish Lord of the Rings”)? Check it out to find out! Here it is on Spotify and here it is on Apple Podcasts:

New Episode of A Good Story Well Told: Girls Just Want to Have Fun, featuring special guest Grace Lin!

Can a quickie movie adaptation of a song, which didn’t even have the rights to use Cyndi Lauper’s version, actually be a good movie?? Superstar author Grace Lin makes the case, and Jonathan Auxier and I are here for it!

Here’s the link on Spotify or listen here on Apple Podcasts: 

New episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Hook, with special guest Lindsay Eager!

In this episode, Jonathan Auxier and I welcome our first ever guest, Lindsay Eager, to make the case for Hook, Steven Spielberg’s 1991 movie about a grown-up Peter Pan! Will she be able to convince us that it’s unfairly maligned?  Check it out here on Spotify or here on Apple: 

New Episode of A Good Story Well Told on Real Steel!

Jonathan Auxier and I continue our Guilty Treasures series, where we (or guests) make the case for critically maligned works! This episode, can Jonathan convince me of the value of the Hugh Jackman robot-boxing movie Real Steel?

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on The Scorpion King!

My other podcast, “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier, returns for a second season! This season, Jonathan, various guests, and I will be extolling the virtues of commercially unsuccessful or critically derided works, so in this episode I get things going by making the case for The Rock’s 2002 starring debut The Scorpion King. Will Jonathan see the hidden value?

A Bonus Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on KPop Demon Hunters!

It's a new episode of "A Good Story Well Told", where Jonathan Auxier and I discuss KPop Demon Hunters and various things we've meant to discuss over the course of the show! Season 2 coming soon!

And here it is on Spotify:

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Anne of Green Gables!

I got Jonathan to read a candidate for Great American Novel, so now Jonathan makes me read what might be the Great Canadian Novel, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Will I embrace my neighbors to the north? 

 Check it out on Spotify here or Apple Podcasts here:

 

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Beloved!

It’s a new episode of “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier! We’re nearing the end of our Shame Shelf series, where we shame each other into reading or watching things the other somehow missed. This is the big one, where I force Jonathan to finally read the most acclaimed American novel of my lifetime, Beloved. It’s a heavy novel about slavery, but also a thrilling ghost / haunted house story and a touching romance.  Will I win him over to it?

Here it is on Spotify and here it is on Apple podcasts:

 

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on the Kill Bill Movies!

Can you believe I never saw the Kill Bill movies? Jonathan shames me into finally watching them and I have a strong reaction! Discussion is had of repeated beats, “Save the Cat” moments, and characters believing in themselves.

Here’s the episode on Spotify…

…and here it is on Apple Podcasts!

 

Check it out!

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

In this episode, I shame Jonathan into finally watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! Note for clarity, since we use actor and character names interchangeably: Clint Eastwood plays Blondie (The Good), Lee Van Cleef plays Angel Eyes (The Bad) and Eli Wallach plays Tuco (The Ugly). Keep that in mind as you listen!

Here it is on Spotify!

And here it is on Apple Podcasts!  

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Never Let Me Go!

Hey, everybody, it’s a new episode of my podcast “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier! In this episode, he shames me into finally reading Kazuo Ishiguru’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go. We get much discussion out of it, including the power and peril of basing your stories on pre-established conspiracy theories. I hope you enjoy it! 

 Here it is on Spotify.

And here it is on Apple Podcasts!

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Slaughterhouse-Five!

It’s a new episode of “A Good Story Well Told” with co-host Jonathan Auxier! We’re still doing our “Shame Shelf” series, and in this episode I shame Jonathan into finally reading Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel “Slaughterhouse-Five.” Much discussion is had about whether it’s good or bad to write a novel that is very much a product of its time.

We also discuss the New York Times review of Guy Fieri’s restaurant in Times Square, written by Pete Wells.  Here that is (or here, if you’d prefer not to give any clicks to the Times.)
 

Here’s this week’s episode on Spotify and here it is on Apple Podcasts: 

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Treasure Planet

Hey everybody, it’s time for a new episode of A Good Story Well Told. In this episode, Jonathan gets me to finally watch the notorious Disney flop Treasure Planet! Will I end up saying “I haven’t missed much” or “Where have you been all my life??”

Here’s the episode on Apple Podcasts…

…And here it is on Spotify!

   

I am no longer cross-posting the episodes on the Secrets of Story feed, so you’ll have to subscribe to the new feed to get them from now on!

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Vertigo!

Hi everybody! As you may recall, I’ve launched a new podcast called “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier. We released an intro episode and a first full episode where Jonathan shamed me into finally reading the book “The Giver.”

I’m glad to say that both episodes got great ratings and lots of positive attention! Thanks to everybody who gave them a listen. Please feel free to rate and review us on iTunes to help people find the podcast! (Here’s an interview with Jonathan and me that my wife conducted for School Library Journal’s website, if you want to learn more about us!)

Well now we’ve released our second full episode, where I get to shame Jonathan into finally seeing the movie Vertigo. I think the episode turned out great!

You can find it here on Apple Podcasts!

And here on Spotify!